Software Carpentry: an introduction to basic software development

This is a wonderful resource. I especially like the lighthearted tone that goes easy on the jargon. With a great bibliography to boot:

Elliotte Rusty Harold: Effective XML. Addison-Wesley, 2004, 0321150406. This book explains which of XML's many features should be used when: Item 12 tells you to store metadata in attributes, and then spends six pages explaining why, while Item 24 analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of various schema languages, and Item 38 covers character set encodings. It's more than most developers will ever want to know, but when you need it, you really need it.

I couldn't have described Harold's tome on XML better myself.

This is amazing. Actually, this kind of thing makes me wish I'd stayed in academia, if only because there are so few good courses out there, even less taught in an approachable manner.